SOHCAHTOA!
by Nuclear Eggs
Summary: Rin is famous among the girls of her school as the best matchmaker, but one day, she falls for Len. Too shy to confess, she decides to use her wits to make him fall for her. Little does she know that Len is the boys' relationship wizard, and he has his eye on her, leaning on his skills to make Rin fall for him. And what if Gumi, the Kansai Gossip Queen, transfers in?
1. Chapter 1

"Please! You _have_ to help me!" Miki shouted, bolting forward in her chair.

In the shadows, Rin looked at Miki. She knew her, of course. Rin knew everyone in school. "What's the problem?"

Miki swallowed, face flushing red as she stared down at her hands. "It's...it's Kaito," she said, quietly. "I like him."

Rin began to leaf through the thick binder she kept on her desk, the one that contained personality profiles of people in school, detailed observations of couple behavior, long lists of school gossip, and complicated spreadsheets of romantic data. "Kaito Shion, right?"

"Yes," said Miki, fidgeting. "Anyways, I really like him, but I know he likes Meiko. And Meiko likes him too, Lily told me. Kaito and Meiko in the same club together, Student Council, so..."

Rin's finger paused at the page that held Kaito's profile, and she tapped it twice in thought. "Yeah, I know. Student Council, same year, and they live in the same neighborhood. Meiko and him are childhood friends too, which raises the likelihood of them getting together by twenty five percent, and they have compatible personality types, to boot. Kaito is easygoing and Meiko can be bossy, so he's perfect to put up with her, and even Meiko thinks it's hard to get annoyed with such a relaxed guy," Rin said. "And you, Miki...everything works against you." Rin flipped over towards the page she kept for Miki and began to rattle off the statistics, her mind automatically doing the comparisons and calculations. "You're a year younger than him, you don't share any clubs, you haven't even _talked_ to him before, and I don't even think he knows you exists. If I had anything to say, I'd put you at having a success rate of point five percent."

Miki's eyes widened, and biting her lip, she stared down at her intertwined fingers. "So...it's...it's hopeless?"

Rin laughed and leaned forward, into the light, blue eyes gleaming. "It _would_ be hopeless...if you didn't come to me. Don't worry, Ms. Furukawa. I'll take your case."

-o-o-o-

It was spring, and love was everywhere in Yamaha Academy, with people nervously nursing crushes and writing love letters and doing all sorts of silly things in order to win the object of their affections, and in the midst of this all was Rin Kagamine.

Her reputation and power amongst the female students was immense. Somehow, Rin Kagamine seemed to know everything about everyone, and over time, proved to know quite a bit about how to get people together too, her schemes oftentimes making the most unlikely of matches, be it a nervous nerdy boy with a popular flirty girl, a cool aloof teacher with a mature, precocious student, or a coffee-getting newspaper club gofer with the cool, idolized student council president. As such, Rin's reputation spread, and soon after first year began, Rin had herself a cozy set-up in an empty classroom after school that she would use for her matchmaking consultations.

She had a success rate of one hundred percent. As such, she was hailed amongst the girls as the girl to go to when one had love problems, her exact scientific method foolproof. In fact, Rin Kagamine was known as the Scientist of Love.

For Rin, nothing could possibly go wrong.

-o-o-o-

"Hey, Len, could you help me out?" Kaito asked, scratching the back of his head as he stared down at his feet.

"Sure," said Len. "What is it?"

"Okay," Kaito glanced around the near-empty hallway before leaning forward, voice lowered in a conspiratorial whisper. "I like Meiko."

"Oh, that's great," said Len. "Are you gonna confess?"

Kaito paled and shook his head violently. "What? Are you kidding? There's no way I can confess to her! But...I can with your help, right? You're the relationship wizard, after all."

Len's eyes widened and he glanced around the hallway before lowering his voice. "Hey, keep that down...I don't want _everyone_ to know."

"Well, all the boys know already...come on, you're our secret weapon."

Indeed. In fact, if Rin Kagamine was the girls' best matchmaker, then Len Shimoda was the boy's secret weapon. Though he was only a first year, from the first day of school, he displayed a remarkable ability in getting boys together with the object of their affections, after he left a banana peel on the floor that led to a guy slipping on it and crashing into the lips of his beloved, whom he started dating the day after. News of the event quickly spread, and Len's reputation only grew when he helped another boy get the girl of his dreams the day after.

Unlike Rin, who relied on scientific data for her exquisitely planned matchmaking endeavors, Len was a master of carefully engineered coincidences, displaying an uncanny knack for perfect timing and deep intuition. Within the past few weeks alone, a third of the boys had come to Len Shimoda for help, and just by listening to his careful and precise advice, they had all gotten their loves within a few short days.

Len had a success rate of one hundred percent. Among the boys, his reputation spread like wildfire. In fact, he was so renowned for his special ability, he was referred to as the Relationship Wizard. He could hardly step foot in school without someone asking him to help him out with getting with so and so. Now, Len was a nice kid, but even he had limits, so he spent a lot of lunches hiding from anyone who looked even remotely lovestruck.

Still, Len and Kaito were friends, so...

"Secret weapon, huh," Len sighed, rubbing a hand through his hair. "Meiko, right? Isn't she the treasurer?"

"Yeah," said Kaito, nodding fervently. "We've been friends since we were kids...just asking her out isn't allowed. I can't do that, that violates friendship code."

Len nodded, brow already furrowed in concentration. "Okay. I'll help you out."

* * *

This is the prologue! Next chapter will be a lot longer, and it will also take place some time after the prologue.


	2. Chapter 2

News of the two so-called 'competing matchmakers' spread like fire, though everyone was careful to keep the fact from the matchmakers themselves. As such, both Rin and Len thought that they were pulling off a routine matchmaking job.

Rin, as befit her title as Scientist, immediately dove for her time-tested standard of the scientific method. Hypothesis, experimentation, conclusion; except, in this case, her hypothesis was the goal and the experimentation was the means to get to the goal. The conclusion would be, of course, another success to put in her binder. It wasn't really a 'scientific method' at all, but she called it that because she thought it was catchy.

Len, on the other hand, relied solely on his sharp sense of intuition. He observed Meiko and Kaito for a few hours as his mind quietly whirred away at conversational gambits and opportunities to get the two alone. He had a ready stock of bananas too, in case the match called for such risky methods. Although, after a case where a student slipped on a banana and ended up kissing a teacher, Len decided not to use such methods unless absolutely necessary.

It was in this tense arena where Rin and Len met for the first time.

It happened in the cafeteria, where Rin was about to head over to the trash to dump her finished lunch when she bumped into Len on the way there.

Immediately, the cafeteria hushed as everyone craned their heads to look at the two matchmakers. It was, to everyone's knowledge, the first time the two of them had met before, ever.

"Oh," said Len, sheepishly as he backed up from the blonde-haired girl. "Sorry about that."

There was an 'ooh' from the crowd.

"Ah, geez, watch where you're go-" Rin began, but then she looked up into Len's eyes and trailed off, her own slowly widening. Later eyewitnesses would report that, perhaps, there was a faint blush of red on her pale face, but it could have just as easily been their own imagination.

There was a long silence, one that seemed to stretch on forever until Miku Hatsune quietly coughed in the corner. As if that was a cue, both Len and Rin began to talk.

"S-sorry, I just didn't see, you were kind of staring at the floor and-"

"Are you saying I'm _short?_ You're the same height as me!"

The crowd gasped.

"What? Th-that's not what I'm saying at all!" Len waved his hands and shook his head frantically, with so much force it seemed as though his hands were in danger of flying off.

"It sure sounded like it," said Rin, her eyes narrowed. She was still holding her tray of undumped lunch, and Len's eyes quickly darted down to it. A bolt of inspiration seemed to strike him, and he extended an arm towards Rin's lunch.

"I-I'm sorry if I offended you," said Len. "How about I dump your lunch for you and we can call it even and introduce ourselves normally?"

Rin scowled. "If that's what you want, I guess."

After Len walked the short two steps over to the trash can with the tray, he came back and smiled at Rin, offering his hand for a handshake. "So, uh, I'm Len Shimoda."

Rin eyed Len's hand as though it was an alien creature before sticking out her own and shaking it. "Rin. I'm Rin Kagamine."

-o-o-o-

Over the course of the next few weeks, Len and Rin ended up bumping into each other quite often due to their similar, yet opposite, romantic goals. While running around setting events up for Miki to 'accidentally' run in to Kaito, Rin would bump into Len, who would be running around setting up events for Kaito to 'accidentally' run into Meiko. What actually ended up happening was that Miki and Meiko met up a good deal of times throughout the week and over time discovered a mutual interest in gardening. Or, once, when Len was chatting with Meiko about the relative merits of ice cream, Rin forcibly inserted herself into the conversation and started talking about how great eggplants were instead, a change of subject that was completely random and ended up with Rin and Len talking with each other, Meiko having escaped to other, saner conversations.

Things, however, eventually came to an end.

It was an ordinary, unassuming day. While Rin was on-route to talk to Kaito to make sure that he ends up at the gym at five, Len was on his way to convince Kaito that what he should do is go out to purchase copious amounts of ice cream to woo Meiko with, his reasoning being that, if Meiko knows that Kaito likes ice cream, she should equate him giving her a lot of ice cream as a true gesture of true love and thus, finally get the hint.

What actually ended up happening was that Rin and Len collided on the way there.

"Watch where you're going!" Rin shouted as she rubbed her head.

"You're really good at this running around without being seen thing," Len groaned as he got up to his feet. "Ow..."

"Are you sure that you're not just completely blind?" Rin dusted herself off as she got up.

"Hey, I'm not blind!"

"How could you possibly miss me walking down the hall?"

"Well, I was running..."

"What were you running towards? It can't be that important," Rin scoffed. After all, she knew that her lofty matchmaking goals were above all others.

"I need to tell a friend of mine to get a lot of ice cream," said Len.

"Get a lot of ice cream?" Rin's eyes narrowed. She knew that there was only one person in school who would possibly consider such a thing. "You're looking for Kaito?" Already she was making the requisite adjustments in her plan. If Len was looking for Kaito, then Rin would have to account for that, though, Miki was already waiting in the gym. Kaito still needed to be told that Miki was waiting there, but first, Rin had to get rid of Len person.

"Right," said Len. "It's important."

"Uh, sure. You know," Rin said, her mind racing, "that's inefficient. Why not get the ice cream yourself first and then give it to him?"

"Won't it melt that way?"

"...those are minor details."

After some time, Len, who had a vague idea of what Rin was up to as well, managed to convince her to help him get the ice cream too.

And so, what happened in the end was this:

While waiting around for Kaito, Miki ended up striking up a conversation with Piko, who was on the track team and generously offered to wait with her. After discovering how much they had in common, a fact helped along by the fact that Kaito never really showed up, Piko, in an attempt to cheer up a disconsolate Miki, took her out to eat something, and the two of them struck up a friendship that may, someday, require Piko to use Len's services, or Miki to request Rin's help once more.

During all this, in a student council meeting, Meiko, who remained oblivious to the whole matchmaker match, confessed to Kaito while Luka, the student council president, was talking about new fax machines. It caused a great deal of hubbub in student council, and no productivity was done that day.

As for Rin and Len...

-o-o-o-

It came as little surprise to anyone when Rin realized that, perhaps, she just might have a little bit of a thing for Len. Just a tiny smidgen of a feeling, really, nothing big at all, shouldn't cause any problems unless-

"You _like_ him!" said Miku with a wide grin on her face. She looked as though the sentence 'you like him' was equivalent to 'I just won the lottery.'

"No, I don't!" Rin protested. She made a grab for Miku, but Miku nimbly avoided her grasp and burst into a fresh set of giggles. "Stop laughing at me!"

"I can't help it," said Miku, chuckling. "I mean, I never thought that I'd live to see the day when you, the Scientist of Love...falls in love!"

Rin scoffed and turned away from her friend. "Whatever! Look, I'm telling you, Miku. I'm an authority on the subject of 'love', and I'm saying that, no matter what you say, I'm not in love with Len. The idea of that is just plain ridiculous."

"Well, you've been bumping into him a lot lately," said Miku. "And you've been talking about him a lot. You always get that look on your face when you do too."

Rin sputtered for a few moments before she found her words. "I...I _do not._ Anyways, it's not like I'm mooning over him. I've been...I've been _complaining_ about him!"

Miku smirked and leaned back on her chair, hands behind her head. "Sure, just keep telling that to yourself. Just face it, Rin, you like Len. Though, you have good taste," Miku mused. "He's a nice person. Pretty popular too."

Rin scowled at Miku, suddenly regretting the fact that she confided in her. She didn't know that Miku would possibly so...so..._persistent_ about this. "Listen," said Rin, slowly. "I don't like Len. We just happened to meet a lot during the...Kaito, Meiko, Miki thing. It was a total coincidence."

"Whatever helps you sleep better at night," said Miku with a wave of her hand. Then, her cellphone buzzed and she started to text someone.

"Who are you texting?" Rin asked.

"Uh...Luka?"

"Wait...don't tell me you're going to tell her something stupid like 'Rin likes Len'..."

Miku laughed. "Oh, don't worry. She already knows."

"She _already_ knows? What's that supposed to mean? Wait," Rin paused as an awful new idea began to take shape in her head. "Don't tell me that everyone thinks I like Len..."

Miku shrugged. "Well, you made it pretty obvious."

"Look, Miku," Rin raised her hands, deciding to take a different route to this. "I...I don't think you're understanding the situation. That is only natural, because you're not a scientist of love like I am. You see, when someone loves another person, it's the result of all sorts of carefully triggered events, and the statistics have to be just right. As such, I cannot possibly be in love with Len. I've done my research. Our compatibilities are completely off the mark, so we're completely incompatible as a result. It's simple. _Quod erat demonstrandum."_

Miku gave Rin a blank look before shaking her head. "I think you need to retake statistics. Ever heard of outliers?"

-o-o-o-

"I can't get her out of my mind," Len mumbled, head on the table. Kaito was sitting across from him, heartily enjoying a heaping bowl of ice cream.

"That's natural," said Kaito. "You ran into her a lot while helping me out with Meiko. Thanks for that though! You work fast, I still can't believe she confessed to me."

"Oh, yeah, no problem..." Len said absentmindedly. Really, the events of that particular matchmaking endeavor had been pretty out of the norm. For one, there was all that running into Rin business. Though Len didn't know why, Rin also seemed pretty caught up with the business of Kaito and romance, but, to Len's relief, she didn't seem to be interested in Kaito romantically. Still, she was involved _somehow,_ though how exactly, Len wasn't sure. "Happy for you two. It's just.." Len frowned. "Now I don't know what to do."

"You _don't?"_ Kaito stared at him, blue eyes wide with shock. "How could you not know? You're the love wizard! Can't you use your own powers to help yourself?"

"My own...powers?"

"Right," said Kaito, leaning back in his chair. He took another bite of ice cream before speaking. "Your own powers. If you could help all of us guys to get who _we_ want, then it makes sense that you can help yourself to get who _you_ want."

Len stared down at his hands. Was it possible? But...all he did was play supporting roles in everyone's own quest to get their beloved. He can't very well matchmake _himself,_ it doesn't work that way. But if it worked for everyone else, why wouldn't it work for him too? Maybe it wouldn't be so hard after all...

"Oh," said Kaito. "By the way, did you hear about the new transfer student?"

"There's a new transfer student?"

"Yeah," Kaito nodded. "Apparently she's Sonika's cousin."

"Ah, Sonika...that's cool," said Len, vaguely.

"That's not the only thing though," Kaito said, eyes closed as he ate his ice cream. "See, this transfer student is apparently infamous back in her school as the 'Kansai Gossip Queen.' She knows _everything_ about _everybody_ over there."

Len blinked. "Oh, that's...nice. She'll be good for the newspaper club then-"

"Hold up," said Kaito. "She's also the kind of person who can get nosy with things. So, if you're going to be beginning your romantic battle campaign, you need to be careful."

"Why would I need to be careful?" Len said. "What happened to romance being, you know...private?"

"It's high school! Love is never private."

Len put his head back on the table with a sigh.

-o-o-o-

The next day, students of Yamaha Academy were all abuzz with news of the new transfer student. As befit the so-called 'Kansai Gossip Queen', rumors were already flying around before Rin could even step inside school.

"There's a lot of people talking about this..." said Miki, her voice faintly awed.

"Yeah," Rin muttered. She was still a little sore at Miki for changing her mind about the matchmaking partway through after she started talking with some guy on the track team named Piko. "Well, whatever. Shouldn't be a big deal, anyways."

"Yeah...oh," Miki turned towards Rin, a smile on her face. "I heard that you like Len!"

"N-no I...ugh. Did Miku tell you this?"

"No," said Miki. "Yukari did."

Rin heaved a sigh. "What's with this? This is completely unscientific. Look, I'm telling you, I don't-"

"Oh, there's Len!" Miki said, pointing, and Rin looked over. There was Len, actually, talking with Kaito as the two of them walked to class, and Rin felt her chest tighten for some reason. She couldn't stop looking at him, and-

"Ah hah," said Miki, triumphantly. "You have that look on your face."

"Wh-what are you talking about?" Rin tore her gaze away.

"If you like him," Miki continued, "you should use your 'scientific method' to get him, right? You're our secret weapon, after all! So you can definitely help yourself too."

Rin sighed, but despite herself, she was already thinking over what Miki said. Okay, so maybe Len wasn't too bad. He did look...acceptable (Rin wasn't about to think any ridiculous adjectives like 'handsome' or 'cute' or whatever, no way). Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to...

"Ah, you're blushing!" said Miki, happily, and then she turned towards Miku, who had suddenly appeared from a nearby door. "Miku, look! Rin's blushing!"

"Whoah! I never thought I'd live to see the day!" Miku said, leaning over to catch a glimpse of Rin, and Rin quickly slapped her hands over her cheeks. Crap, she really _was._ Miku and Miki's intent stares weren't helping either. Why was everyone so nosy?

"Don't you have newspaper club gofer business or something, Miku?" Rin said.

Miku blinked. "Newspaper club is _after_ school. Classes haven't even started yet."

...oh. Right.

"Have you heard about the transfer student?" Rin tried in an attempt to get the subject off of her and Len.

Miku thought for a moment. "Oh, yeah! She's Sonika's cousin, isn't she? The Kansai Gossip Queen, huh...it looks like my workload at the newspaper club is going to increase even more." Miku sighed as the three of them began to walk to class. "At any rate, Rin, you know what you should do? Use your scientific method of matchmaking to win over Len!"

"That's what I think too," said Miki, brightly. "It's a good idea, isn't it?"

"It is! It totally is! Rin, you should go for it!"

Rin sighed, thought of Len bouncing around her mind like pinballs. Would it hurt? It wouldn't, but, despite all of her own prowess at getting other people together, Rin had to admit that she never actually dated anyone before. After all, one of the first rules of science was to not get too involved with it herself, but...still. It wouldn't be so bad, right? And Len was...okay. Rin had to admit to herself that Len wasn't too bad, either. "Fine...I'll give it a shot."

Miku and Miki's combined cheers were enough to draw stares from the hallway.

-o-o-o-

Len tapped his pencil against the desk, hand on his cheek as he thought. He had a seat in the back near the window, and Rin was sitting several seats in front of him. Could he possibly pass notes? But he rejected that idea - if he passed a note to Rin, that note would be seen by everyone on its way there, and rumors would start flying. If Len knew one thing, it was that he had to be more subtle about this.

Before he could think too much, though, the teacher cleared his throat. "Class! Today, we have a new transfer student. Please come in, Ms. Nakajima," he said, glancing at the door, and the transfer student walked in, her clothes clean and neat, her walk more of a confident swagger than anything else. She had bright green hair and, for some inexplicable reason, goggles on her forehead.

Standing there, she surveyed the class as though it was some sort of new battleground. There was a gleam in her eyes that seemed to single out every student before she spoke.

"Hey! I'm Gumi Nakajima," she said, grinning. "I'm happy to be here! I hope I get to know you all."


End file.
